Life At The A & P Essay examples

Life at the A&P
Sammy, the protagonist in “A&P” a short story written by john Updike, talks about controversy in the middle class. Sammy is a cashier at the local grocery store who sits behind the counter and judges the customers for conforming to society until he sees three girls in bathing suits, who he is jealous of for living free, get reprimanded by his manager for their attire and he quits because of it but soon realizes that might not be the whole reason. Sammy the main character in A&P battles conflict and controversy in a small town through the writing of john Updike the voice of the middle class.
Sammy being a 19 year old kid at first glance one would assume that Sammy quit for the wrong reasons. Sammy quit his job at A&P to impress the girls and act like a superhero but the girls just leave him without notice even though he said he quit loud enough to make sure they could hear what he said (Dessner). “You didn 't have to embarrass them." "It was they who were embarrassing us." (Updike). this shows Sammy was upset the way his boss treated them and it is very possible he did it because he wanted the girls to like him. Along with this theory of Sammy quitting it is also believed that Sammy just could not control his impulses and did not think about what would happen after he made this quick decision, along with what his parents might think (Wells). To some degree it wouldn’t be crazy to believe his action was an impulse but with these thoughts it is believed that…

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